Tag Archives: war

On October 10, 2013, while doing research for an essay on teams and managing teams, I tripped over several articles on the economic impact of civil war.

I learned that social scientists, such as myself and those far more academic than Ms. Annie Sells, have spent a lot of time and resources studying civil war and have done some pretty extensive research. Why?

I thought you might wonder why. According to reviews of civil war literature, there are 5 reasons civil war is worth studying.

2) Civil war causes suffering; human suffering is extreme, economic development suffers, and political instability is a side effect.

3) Civil war undermines regional stability; it tears up counties.

4) Civil war engages the interests of distant powers and international organizations; others are in the business of countries.

5) Policymakers are re-assessing the efforts necessary to deal with civil war; hindsight is always at least 20/20 and helpful for preparing for the future.

The start of new civil wars has been on the decline since 1994. So why, living in the United States (US), should you concern yourself with understanding civil war? Here are 5 reasons I know civil war is the worth understanding in the US:

1) Civil war is real.

2) Civil war is a problem of the poor and we are getting poorer each day.

3) The Federal Government Shutdown is still in effect, at least the 15% that pays the US’ bills.

4) It has been 148 years since the start of the last civil war in the US; it took at least 700,000 lives, which is only slightly less than the number of people now furloughed nationwide.

5) If it has happened once, it can happen again.

I know we ought to avoid taboos, but come on, if we aren’t, we really should be paying attention.